Skip to main content

tv   [untitled]    September 24, 2013 8:30am-9:01am PDT

8:30 am
of this would be possible without the building trade. your leadership has been essential to our success. thank you for that. and as i acknowledge leaders who are here tim, a know that willie brown and gary newson would be proud. i know it's been a catalyst to bring this together whether it's about enabling this to go forward or tax policy or enabling on construction and attracting other businesses here. ed lee, thank you for your leadership, mayor lee. as i acknowledge the dignity reese who are here, i want to thank our president break barack
8:31 am
obama. he's helped with many other projects in the city. i hope he can visit soon so he can see the fruit of the american recovery and reinvestment act. when we arrived maria was telling us that one of the, there was evidence when the construction began as ships arriving in san francisco at the time of the gold rush. at that time, people came here, rushed here with their hopes and aspirations and their dreams to make a better life. that tradition is continued today as we go forward with this project. it is in the tradition of san francisco to be about what is new, to be about innovation, to be about commerce, to be about jobs for
8:32 am
families in our city. in that regard, as the cement is poured today, tradition of leadership continues. as we pour the concrete for the first part of the new transbay center we are laying the foundation for the future of the transit development in the area. by our actions today we are setting the corner stone for the new grand central station of the west. we are staying [ applause ] we are staying on track to connect cities and communities throughout the region and across the state. scott, i notice is here. thank you, scott, for your leadership. we are opening the doors to public transit options reducing
8:33 am
congestion on our roads. and with every pouring of concrete, we building the transit center for jobs and housing and retail organizations. all what john said it would be. that's john burton for his leadership on this subject. i mentioned it would be the grand central station of the west. why? this center will be a place where people can board high speed rail trains as part of california's high speed rail system. it will bring consumers to our city, to our system that is better, faster and cheaper. once the entrance bay transit center is complete, it will bring 11 transit systems together under one roof, meaning more convenience for
8:34 am
commuters and more efficiency for workers and more growth for our city. today our action serves as a marker for the entire city. leaders in businesses are behind the transbay center. that's why i'm so proud that the recovery act had $400 million for the transbay center in it. that doesn't count for the central subway, all of the other transportation issues. as i always say to the workers, who make all of this possible as we thank you. our hopes are riding on you because you make all of this possible. so let us again salute the men and women in hard hats who make this all possible for us. [ applause ] standing together, these leaders are keeping san francisco at the forefront of
8:35 am
good jobs. prevailing wage, good paying jobs and growing economy and thriving middle class, keeping families in san francisco working together as the men and women pouring concrete today and the laborers continuing the work in weeks and months to come will keep this city in the cutting edge of progress. thank you all, each one of you who is here for your leadership, thank you to our workers for this partnership, for this commitment to the transbay transit center. i can't wait to tell the president about this exciting occasion and for him to visit for him to see himself how working together we are advancing the aspiration of the people of san francisco and the entire bay area. i thank all of you starting with the mayor for your role in this. thank you so much. [ applause ]
8:36 am
thank you so much leader pelosi for all you have done inform this project and all you do for this country. in 1998 when this project was a dream. the first seed money we received was from leader pelosi. leader pelosi back then believed in the project and that had vision and saw the project when no one else did. thanks for the seed money of $10 million that helps us to be where we are today. thank you so much, leader. our next speaker deserves all the praise from san francisco. from the water and infrastructure in the sierra nevada mountains, mayor lee, knows a lot about infrastructure. he has been essential and continues to be vital to the entrance bay
8:37 am
project. he's been a supporter from the different public works and a leader and administrator. i'm very thankful. we would not be here without your support as well. the center adopted the transit plan. it will also provide crucial financing for the transbay project. with that, it gives me great pleasure to introduce our mayor, mayor lee. [ applause ] >> thank you, maria and let me also repeat what leader pelosi has already done and well so that your leadership from day one when mayor brown had made you the center of getting this
8:38 am
done. i would like to say i want that reputation of getting things done, but you got that reputation from this project going forward. thank you very much for your leadership. [ applause ] hello, everybody. thank you for being here today. it's another important milestone in our transbay center for our city. yes, earlier this week i joined the meeting for the infrastructure and making sure that our water and power infrastructures were assessment -- safe. it comes back as leader pelosi voices again and again, transportation infrastructure, if built well will also attract workers, housing and make our cities
8:39 am
great. that's why an hall said, we know this to be true. that's why we spent a lot of time figuring things out on the planning side. i would like to say thanks to john for the contribution as well along with mary and supervisors kim and others, not only did we use the monies as opportunities to begin this and get workers back on track on getting good jobs, but we also figured out for the five other buildings with tax increment financing so our general fund would not be burdened with additional taxes for the streets. in fact we are standing on trestles right now that are built temporarily. you just came across a bridge in order to get this project
8:40 am
going, in order to have the machinery to stand next to the construction site. as maria said very clearly. we have the water penetration controls because this is right at the edge of the historic water. so we have to do all of these things to plan well. i want to say thank you to president obama, leader pelosi, the entire delegation because they have been very sensitive to our vision and they in fact embraced the vision and we've become models for the rest of the country to use the infrastructure and recover from the economy and attract investments. that's the way the city has to work this way. they must work this way. this is going to be the future and it's the grand central for many many reasons. this transit center
8:41 am
will become a critical anchor for economic development and jobs. after the thousands of jobs that the construction workers will have, there will be 27,000 permanent jobs attached to this transbay transit center on going, sustained. that's why this transit district plan was so important and it got a unanimous adoption by the board of supervisors because of the way everybody presented the plan and the vision, united everyone around it with a vision of the 21 -century downtown. downtown has been a focus for many years. we knew this center would improve. we literally added 3,000 jobs in san francisco. that enhances
8:42 am
those jobs and even more. look what's coming. 181 fremont began demolition last week, 54 stories of space, mission street, already 100 percent lease by sales force. 535 mission, another 27 story building, 505 howard street, another lead and 22nd street. lead certified with another 26 stories. these have shops and restaurants and in a few short years, the best public transportation center in the region. all of these new buildings and the transit
8:43 am
center means good paying jobs. 27,000 jobs, we already announced as part of this, but also 6 million square feet of new office space, 4500 new housing units. 1200 of those housing units are going to be affordable because of the financing. financing is just as important as transportation in our city. a hundred thousand square feet of new retail space. a thousand new hotel rooms and for all you open spacen enthusiast, 11 new acres of parks downtown open space. [ applause ] i said earlier, the financing of this doesn't always get a lot of publicity because the
8:44 am
finance people are always working within their confines, but no burden to their general fund means that more of our members of our board and the mayor can work together to get the social programs that we need and make sure that our funds are utilized to get those quality like programs working in the city. i want to give again a special thanks to the men and women in the labor force, mike terio and the construction trades, the workers union, the building trade are all here. thank you for keeping this job safe, inviting and sustainable for everybody who wants to work in the city. [ applause ] again, thank you to leader pelosi, thank you to the entire federal delegation with senator feinstein and boxer and certainly the administration is
8:45 am
here today and thank you for working with us not just on this, on presidio and the transit system, the tunnel machines are already in and working their way through a hundred feet at a time. that is all very complimentary. i want to give a shout out to governor jerry brown and the leaders of the state, houses and steinberg and perez for their leadership and supervisor kim, thank you. the tgpa has been there from the beginning. we have created that entity to make sure they all work together. you are pulling all the different transportations here to make sure we are not only getting this center done right and working with tjpa but we are going to melody it into the rail. the state of california is looking to san francisco as well as the nation to get these
8:46 am
models going. but we need to understand the history of where it all began and when president obama and leader pelosi said, we are going to recover, we did. i want to thank you leader pelosi for all of your support. this is a really good time for being in the city of san francisco. as many of the media told me, be a little bit more concrete, mayor lee. we are getting real concrete today. thank you very much. [ applause ] thank you, mr. mayor. it's so wonderful to see so much work happening in san francisco. now i have a great privilege to introduce a very important woman, not only to our project but to our district and to san francisco. in 2010 jane kim was elected to the board of supervisors for san francisco. all of the exciting new
8:47 am
development that is taking place for our wonderful new neighborhood. the tjpa board recognizes supervisor kim's leadership and she was appointed to board of directors and also chair of our board. she is the reason we've made progress this far. she is thoughtful and caring and provides a lot of information and valuable input. supervisor kim has not only been a transbay help in our neighborhood but many other factors in our neighbors, pedestrian safety, bicycle safety and other things that involve this community. it is my great pleasure to introduce the chair of the tjpa board of directors supervisor kim. [ applause ]
8:48 am
>> in 2011 when i began my first year in office, maria invited the mayor and i to come to this site where we are standing today for the ribbon cutting for the beginning of construction for this site. in 2011, these ribbon cutings were more of a rarity. this was a ray of sunshine in san francisco that was providing jobs for men and women that had not been for years. this was a time in the recession that many of us remember, but almost, you almost barely remember it today. the mayor actually when i first started approached me in january to talk about how we can create more jobs here in san francisco. and he mentioned a little known company called at which -- twitter and their interest in staying in san francisco. and we began the
8:49 am
market on tax exclusion. since then, i get to see the mayor almost every week on different ribbon cutting and ground breaking. you would think it's more comfortable to walk in heels in these sites. i was informed that my shoes are not osha proof. i need to reexamine as i walk around here. we have many more projects. whether we talk about the the expansion on sf moma and more recently the opening of the did -- tunnel machine and the director of sfmta and there is so much going on here at the south of market. we are talking about smart growth development. that means transit and high density
8:50 am
residential commercial. it also means affordable housing as the mayor had said. this is an incredible milestone and i'm really pleased to be here with all of our leaders including leader plows -- pelosi. this project is incredibly complicated. it was just a dream for many years. if it's not the dream of maria, who demanded the city pay attention to this project and of course our leader pelosi who fights for us everyday in washington d.c. to make sure we are getting prioritized for the funding for the jobs for the men and women and the permanent jobs in the future, this project would not be possible. the transbay project is a national model. it will bring 11 transportation systems under a single roof all in close proximity for the jobs, housing, retail and recreation and open space. this high
8:51 am
density development will not only foster the economic growth that i said, it will be the center piece of that economic growth and reduce congestion and greenhouse gas emissions. we are creating a bicycle community and safe public transit and full range of neighborhoods amenities. i want to thank the residents of district six and acknowledge bruce who is here who is our representative of the neighborhood on the transbay advisory committee. our residents have invested in this neighborhood early. knowing we don't have all the amenities in yet but also to advise on the city government and making sure this is a neighborhood that works for all of us and is the promise that we have made to them. this smart development it was city's goal when the board of supervisors enacted the transit center that both maria
8:52 am
and the mayor had mentioned last year. that goal is already being achieved. the plan area right here in the center of south of market will have currently 19 buildings and development. all the construction cranes that you see around us. it will have 35 percent mandated affordable housing requirement which is incredibly important for our working families and individuals in the city. we want to thank john burton for his leadership and advocacy for this project. [ applause ] we also want to thank a little known resident of district 6, the former mayor willie brown for initiating this project too. it is the undeniable truth that transbay has been the catalyst for this city. i look forward to working with everybody here for the future success of this program. thank you very much. [ applause ]
8:53 am
>> thank you, director kim, supervisor kim for those words. our final speaker is one who has been in integral to this community. mike has been at my side for the last 15 years helping to make this project a reality along with all the members of the labor community, the carpenters, operating engineers and everybody. mike has been a member of the workers union since 1985 and has represented the workers from san mateo and marine and other counties. he has been voted by his peers and elected the treasure since 2005. he's been with us since the
8:54 am
beginning. the transit project labor unit has been a model for other projects for success. all 20 units signaturary have signed on and we have been able to work with mike to create a program to mentor our youth both students ranging from 5 through high school and college. teaching them about engineering and architecture and all of the various disciplines that go into a project like this. mike as well as all the unions have been working with us as well with urs bashay and we have been working very hard with veterans to provide opportunities for them. in fact one of our very first contracts that was awarded was to a disabled company. without further a do i would like to have mike come up
8:55 am
and speak. thank you. as supervisor kim pointed out, this came out of the recession and it put a lot of folks back to work. we have leader pelosi to thank for that and mayor lee and predecessors and supervisor kim and her pred -- board of supervisors. a hand to all of those that i'm happy to represent. and, you know in digging this hole, we have not just been going down into ground. maria talked a
8:56 am
little bit about this day and how far it came from. we have gone into history and prehistory. we have gone back to where immigrants lived here. we came back in tame where a gold nugget was left here, when ships moord here. we have gone back to a place when willie mammoth left a tooth here for our workers to find. as any major construction project in the city you have to deal with it's history in order to start going in the other direction. that is what this pour today does. this pour today starts us in the other direction, starts us back in the present where we stand and start towards the future. the future you begin to
8:57 am
see around you now and the future for a high speed rail. a future that will include many many jobs. we in the san francisco building trades have been building this city for 117 years now. we count on that being just the first 117 years. on this project being a part of starting us towards many more succession of 117 years to come. one more thing. i have a pass here also. you see those cords, they are called floats. i started hanging floats for that company. there is a past towards the future for me as well. with that, leaders pelosi, i would say let's pour some concrete and start ourselves towards the future.
8:58 am
[ applause ] >> thank you, mike. now i would like to invite our speakers to sign and put some gloves on and put their i am imprint in the concrete for history.
8:59 am
4, 3, 2, 1. [ applause ]
9:00 am
>> good morning, everyone. wg to welcome back to the san francisco budget and finance committee meeting. my name is mike ferrel and we have john avalos and mr. mar. mr. clerk, do we have any announcements? >> yes, please silence all cell phones and devices. speaker cards should be submitted to the clerk. items will be appearing in the